Go Home, Stranger

  Nuts, he thought, I might as well try, now that I’m here. Ducking into a drugstore telephone booth, he put through the call to San Francisco, listening anxiously while the long-distance operator asked Information for the number. Then he heard the telephone ringing. There was just a chance, a slight chance, she had arrived and hadn’t left yet.

  Then his heart leaped eagerly as he heard her answer with a sleepy voice. It wasn’t until then that he realized it was only a little after eight on the Coast and that he’d got her out of bed.

  “Oh,” she said quickly, when she learned who it was. “Have you—I mean, is there anything new?”

  “No. Not yet.” He was sorry for her. She knew her husband had married her under an alias, and that he was either dead or he had tried to kill her, but still she couldn’t quit hoping. “I wanted to ask something,” he went on. “Do you remember the date Mr. Conway arrived in Waynesport when he came back from Italy?”

  “Why, yes,” she said slowly. “It was around the first week in May, I think.”

  “But you don’t know the exact day?”

  “No, I’m sorry. I don’t think he ever said—”

  “How about the name of the ship?”

  “Yes, I know that, if I can just think of it. Wait …” He could tell she was trying to concentrate. She was still dull from sleep. “It was the Silver something. Silver, ah—Silver Cape. That’s it. Why, Mr. Reno?”

  “Just a wild idea,” he said. “I’m still grabbing at straws.”

  “You’ll let me know, won’t you? I’ll be at Carmel.” She gave him the address.

  “Yes,” he said. “The first thing.”

  The public library was a small ivy-covered building on a quiet street asleep under its trees. He asked for and received the bound copies of the Waynesport Express for May, and sat down alone at a table. Beginning at the first, he began flipping through the pages, skipping over to the back of each paper where the shipping news was carried. By the time he had progressed as far as May seventh without success he was growing tense.

  The ship did not arrive on the eighth, or ninth, and as he opened the paper for May tenth, hope was dying. He hurriedly scanned the ship arrivals, and sat back in defeat. There was no mention of the Silver Cape.

  Another hare-brained idea shot to hell, he thought. There wasn’t any connection. Robert Counsel was still at sea when the explosion took place. Automatically, and without interest, he went on to the following paper. And there it was.

  The SS Silver Cape, inbound from Genoa, Marseilles, and Barcelona, had berthed at Weaver Terminal at 1:30 A.M. So what? he wearily asked himself. That was May eleventh, the day after the explosion. No. He sat up, suddenly alert. Griffin had said the tenth, but it was after midnight. He flipped eagerly back to the front page. There was no need to look for it; the headline shouted! “Mysterious Blast Demolishes Boat.”

  He hurriedly skimmed through the story and the follow-up news in subsequent papers. It was essentially as Griffin had told it. Experts said the explosion had come from inside the boat. There was no clue as to the cause. Two men were believed to have been aboard, but their identities were a complete mystery. Griffin was quoted as having no idea who had stolen the craft.

  He quietly closed the binder and sat there for a moment in the hush of the reading room, his face showing none of his furious intensity of thought. The whole thing could be a coincidence. It almost had to be. How could Counsel have caused the blast? He was on the ship, and he couldn’t have got off until after he had been through customs later in the morning, long after the explosion. But still the ship had gone up the channel just before the boat blew up.

  It’s there somewhere, he thought, feeling the goadings of helpless anger. This whole rotten mess fits together like a prefabricated birdhouse, if I just had the key. Mac had it, and they killed him. For just a few minutes, or maybe less, he had the answer to all of it, and then they got him because he’d found out too much. Why can’t I see it if he did?

  And, he wondered coldly, would he have any more warning than Mac had, if he did find it? He started over to Gage’s office.

  He was approaching the entrance to one of the banks when he slowed abruptly. Patricia Lasater had just emerged from the doorway. She did not see him, and now she stood in the center of the sidewalk looking uncertainly about her. Then she turned as if she had found what she sought, and started walking away from him. She stopped at a pickup truck that had pulled to the curb. The door opened, and a big man climbed out. It was Max Easter, dressed in khaki trousers and a cotton undershirt.

  They were no more than fifteen yards away. Reno leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette, watching them speculatively. She took something from her handbag and handed it to Easter. Reno could see it quite plainly—it was money. For moving a trailer, he wondered coldly, or for shaking down my cabin and slugging me with a sap? Or is he putting the squeeze on her?

  Easter took the bills, shoved them carelessly into his pocket, and made a gesture with his other hand that was part acknowledgement and partly a farewell chopped off with curt insolence as he turned abruptly away from her and started up the sidewalk toward Reno. When Easter came abreast, Reno turned and looked squarely at him. It was the first time he had seen him at close range, and he marked the well-shaped head, the short, iron-gray hair, and the cold, deep-set pale eyes.

  As he went past, Easter turned his head and their eyes met. There was no recognition in them, but Reno could feel the hair tingle at the back of his neck. This could be the man. He could be the one who had killed Mac, who had shot at him and Mrs. Conway with the rifle … Then he was gone.

  Howell Gage looked up from the brief he was reading and waved toward a chair. “Anything new?” he asked.

  “Nothing any good. I walked in on somebody going through my gear, and got sapped.” He related the story briefly.

  Gage’s eyes were thoughtful. “He may know who you are. If he does, you’re a bum risk.”

  Reno shrugged. “I don’t think he’s sure yet. There wasn’t anything to prevent him from finishing the job then.”

  “He might be waiting.”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know. But you’re taking chances.”

  “Never mind that.” Reno jerked an impatient hand. “Tell me what you know about Max Easter.”

  “Uh-uh.” Gage shook his head slowly. “I think you’re on the wrong track. Easter’s as big as a horse, and he dresses like a tramp. He couldn’t have got in and out of the Boardman without being noticed by somebody.”

  “I know,” Reno agreed reluctantly. “But then it wouldn’t have been easy for anybody, and we know somebody did. What do you know about him?”

  “Not too much. Except that he’s a bad one to fool with. Has a reputation for being radical and a troublemaker, but keeps pretty much to himself. Don’t think he works any more. Lives out there on the bayou in a houseboat. Guides duck hunters in winter, and probably does a little commercial fishing.”

  “What about this scuttlebutt that Counsel ran off with his wife?”

  Gage lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair, staring thoughtfully at the lighter. “I see what you’re driving at. But it may be only a rumor; nobody ever knew for sure. Easter’s not the confidential type.”

  “When was it?”

  “Just before Counsel was drafted, in forty-two. He’d have been oh, twenty-three, I think. Easter was working at the Mid-Gulf refinery then, as I remember, and hadn’t been married more than a year or so. I never met his wife, but saw her once or twice. Nice-looking kid with big, serious eyes, but a lot younger than Easter. He must have been around forty, even then. Anyway, Mrs. Easter disappeared, along in June, I think it was. And Counsel was gone, too. There was talk they’d been seen together here and there, and then of course there was the inevitable story that somebody ran across them in New Orleans or Miami at some hotel. You’ve probably heard of Counsel’s reputation with the women. He was smooth, and he had a way with them.
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  “And about that time Easter got in trouble at Mid-Gulf. I don’t know whether he was drinking or not, but it was pretty messy, from what they say. Got in a fight with his foreman and damn near killed him. He was fired; of course, and as far as I know he’s never worked at anything since. People leave him pretty much alone except duck hunters and fishermen who persuade him to guide them now and then. Have to catch him in the right mood, or he might not even answer you.”

  “His wife never came back?” Reno asked.

  “No. At least, nobody’s ever seen her.”

  “But Counsel did show up again?”

  “In a way. He was here for maybe a day and a half. He’d received his induction notice, and had to show up. Then he was shipped out.”

  Reno stared thoughtfully out into the sun-blasted street. It tied in, that way. Maybe Easter didn’t know Counsel’d returned in forty-two until he was gone again. Then he had to wait nine years for another chance. And it was easy to see why Counsel had tried to slip in without being seen. But why had he come back at all? He had nothing to gain, and he knew he might be killed if Easter saw him. The puzzle wasn’t all there yet.

  “Where is this houseboat of his?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure I can tell you how to find it. I’ve been up there two or three times duck-hunting, but it’s tricky. Starting out from Malone’s deadfall, you turn off to the right at that first arm of the bayou going north. It’s about three miles, and the bayou forks several times. If I remember correctly, you take the left-hand fork the first time, and then the next two you go to the right.”

  “Thanks,” Reno said. He stood up.

  “But listen, Pete. Your sister’s already lost a husband.”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes. She couldn’t take another shock like that. Don’t monkey with Easter unless you know what you’re doing, and have the police with you.”

  “It’s all right.” Reno paused with his hand on the door, and looked back at the young lawyer without expression. “I’m just going to hire a guide.”

  “Remember, he may know who you are.”

  “Yes,” Reno said softly. “And maybe I know who he is.”

  Chapter Eleven

  SHE WAS NOT AT the car when he arrived. He looked at his watch and grunted. It was 12:30. Ten minutes went by while he fretted impatiently. When she did arrive she was hurrying and out of breath.

  “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I had some business that took a little longer than I’d expected.”

  “It’s all right,” he said shortly, as they got in the car.

  They were both deep in thought and spoke little during the drive back. She thanked him quietly and went into her cabin.

  Reno changed into fishing clothes and went down to the float with rod and tackle box to pick out a skiff. There was no whisper of breeze and the bayou lay flat and glaring like polished steel between the walls of trees. The sun beat relentlessly on his back and shoulders, and before he had rounded the first turn his clothes were dripping with perspiration. There was no other boat in sight. When he came abreast the arm of the bayou that ran off toward the north, he turned in. The channel was narrower here.

  He looked back over his shoulder from time to time to check his course, keeping as close as possible to the bank and the overhanging trees to take advantage of the shade. He could be a thousand miles from civilization here, he thought.

  He had no definite plan, nor any idea of what he might find. He was drawn merely by the fact that all the information he uncovered led him more surely in the direction of Max Easter. Suppose Counsel’s dead, he thought. It almost had to be Easter who killed him. He had the motive. He was here on the bayou, and he’d been waiting a long time.

  He stopped pulling the oars for a minute and looked out through the trees as he lit a cigarette, conscious of a nagging dissatisfaction that he could not escape. There were two weak places in this line of reasoning. In the first place, he didn’t know Counsel was dead. It was just a guess, even if a good, logical one. And secondly, he was no nearer to answering the most baffling question of all and the one that had to be the key to the whole thing: what had Counsel come back for? Not just to see if Easter would kill him—that was a cinch.

  He shook his head and took up the oars again. At least he could get a good look at the big man at close range. And if it developed he hadn’t come back from town yet … His eyes were tough as he thought of the houseboat. Easter, or somebody, hadn’t been squeamish about shaking down his cabin. It could work both ways.

  He pulled steadily, and in about twenty minutes he came to the first fork in the waterway. He took the left-hand channel, as Gage had directed, and mentally noted an old snag as a landmark for the return trip. It would be easy to get lost up here. He wondered how Easter came and went; then he remembered the pickup truck. There must be a road that came nearer to the houseboat somewhere above.

  There was none here, however, nor even any trails along the banks. He must have come two miles or a little more by this time, moving in a generally northwesterly direction.

  He came to the second fork and stopped rowing to look about him. Go to the right here, he thought. The right-hand channel was narrow, not more than twenty, yards across and almost a tunnel under the overhanging trees, while the other was wider and ran straight ahead for another two hundred yards before it swung left around a bend.

  Reno wondered for a moment if Gage had meant what he had assumed: right hand facing forward. A man rowing a boat is traveling backward, but that would normally be disregarded in giving directions … He shrugged. Gage was no fool, and he had been in boats before.

  He was about to take up the oars again when he suddenly jerked his head erect and looked around, trying to identify and locate the sound he had heard. It was not a gun. The muffled roar of it was too deep for that. And where had it come from?

  He swung around in the skiff, facing forward, and saw nothing but the empty reach of the bayou shimmering in the sun. The dead, lost-world silence of the swamp closed in again, and he could hear his own breathing as he listened. It was an explosion of some kind, he thought, completely mystified. But it wasn’t a big blast, and it had come from not very far away.

  Then the sound came again. This time there was a string of three, evenly spaced, about five seconds apart. They came from somewhere up the larger, left-hand channel. There was no mistaking the direction now. He dug in the oars and began pulling swiftly toward the bend up ahead.

  Somebody blowing stumps out of a field, or clearing right of way for a road? Road? he thought. Field? There was neither within miles. They used bulldozers now, anyway.

  He came around the bend, swung his head expectantly, and saw nothing. This stretch of waterway was as devoid of life and movement as all the others. Less than a hundred yards ahead there was another turn, to the right this time. He rowed on.

  He was rounding the turn now, and started to swing his head around to look. He heard the vicious splatt! as the bullet slammed against the water and went whining off into the distance, and he was already off the seat and diving over the side before he heard the sound of the gun itself.

  He came to the surface, gulped a breath, and before he could get the water out of his eyes and look around the second bullet threw up a geyser of swamp water two feet off to his left. He went under, pulling downward and to the right. His movements were hampered by clothing and shoes, and he wondered if he could make it to the screen of overhanging limbs along the bank before he had to surface. It shouldn’t be more than thirty feet.

  He felt leaves brush his hands, and surfaced. He was in deep shadow, and there was no shot. The man, wherever he was up the bayou, couldn’t see him here. Softly turning his head, he looked out through the leaves. Except for his skiff the bayou lay deserted under the glare of the sun. The shots had come as mysteriously out of nowhere as the explosions he had heard. He looked back at the boat. It was rocking gently and drifting a little.

  He was shooting from
somewhere pretty far up this reach of bayou, Reno thought bitterly. And it wasn’t any twenty-two rifle. That was high-velocity stuff, the way it churned up the water before I heard the shot. I’ve got to get out of here before he gets any nearer with that gun. He caught a projected root and pulled himself up the bank. His body brushed, against the stem of a bush, shaking it a little, and almost immediately there was the ominous scream of another flattened bullet tearing off into the timber. A severed twig floated down onto his head. Too damn close, he thought, as he made it onto the bank and dropped behind a log.

  He swung his head and looked back toward the channel: His view down the long reach was cut off by the trees, but he could see straight out toward the other side and he could see the skiff. There was something strange about it, something he had half noticed before and had had no time to consider then.

  Never mind that, he thought. If that guy’s coming down this side with his rifle I’m a dead pigeon if I don’t fade, but fast. The best thing to do is head back along the bank. He raised up a little to study the cover he would have. Except for the area right near the bank, it was open timber; big trees and lots of them, but little underbrush. Getting to his feet with a quick lunge, he started to run to his right, paralleling the bank. Water sloshed noisily in his shoes. He had hurtled forward less that a dozen strides when he heard the gun crash again. He threw himself down and rolled behind the uprooted earth of a fallen tree.

  Closer; he thought, gasping for breath. A lot closer, and it was a different gun. There were two of them. One was covering the open reach of the bayou, and the other was running down this side looking for him. And they knew he didn’t have a gun. All they had to do was move in and pick him off. He couldn’t even hide, because they could track him by the trail of water his soaked clothes were leaving. He felt goose flesh rise and prickle between his shoulder blades as his mind flashed crazily back to the thing that Gage had said: “Your sister’s already lost a husband.”